State secrets claim withdrawn in UK hacking probe

London's Metropolitan Police this week dropped their attempt to leverage the Official Secrets Act to force The Guardian to reveal confidential
sources for stories about the phone-hacking scandal that has gripped the UK's
political and media world. The Met's reversal is welcome, but its unprecedented
attempt to invoke espionage laws to force a newspaper to reveal confidential sources
has itself set a damaging precedent, suggesting that journalists are state enemies
for obtaining sensitive information from government officials.

The Guardian reported that Scotland Yard came
to its offices last week, demanding notebooks and other information from
journalist Amelia Hill concerning her reports that the cell phone of Milly Dowler, a teenager
brutally murdered in 2002, had been hacked on behalf of the News of the World. Police claimed The Guardian's
articles about Operation Weeting, the police investigation into the phone
hacking, had sprung from "gratuitous" leaks in the official inquiry.

As The Guardian reported, the demand for
the newspaper's notes was formally made under the Police and Criminal Evidence
Act, but police also claimed that Hill had "incited" an Operation Weeting source
to break the Official Secrets Act, and that the reporter herself may have
broken the espionage law. The demand was met with wide condemnation
from UK media, politicians, and others. The Home Affairs Committee of the House
of Commons has scheduled a
private hearing today with Met officials to get an explanation.

Far from breaking state secret laws, TheGuardian's
reporting on the phone hacking scandal exemplifies what journalists should be doing--investigating
and reporting on matters of great public interest. Protection of sources is key
to this function and is recognized by international
law and by the European Court of Human Rights. It is also upheld in Article 10
of the UK's own Human Rights Act. Threatening
reporters with the Official Secrets Act was an attempt to circumvent those
protections.

The Met may have backed down for now, but
as the public inquiry led by Lord
Justice Brian Leveson proceeds, it's worth remembering that the use
of security laws to restrict press coverage does a disservice not only to news media
but to society at large.

(Reporting from London)

Elisabeth Witchel, a CPJ consultant, served for many years as the organization’s journalist assistance coordinator. She also launched CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity.